In an aircraft gas turbine (jet) engine, air is drawn into the front of the engine, compressed by a shaft-mounted compressor, and mixed with fuel. The mixture is burned, and the hot combustion gases are passed through a turbine mounted on the same shaft. The flow of combustion gas turns the turbine by impingement against an airfoil section of the turbine blades and vanes, which turns the shaft and provides power to the compressor and to the fan. In a more complex version of the gas turbine engine, the compressor and a high-pressure turbine are mounted on one shaft, and the fan and a low-pressure turbine are mounted on a separate shaft. The hot exhaust gases flow from the back of the engine, driving it and the aircraft forward.
The turbine blades, compressor blades, and fan blades are mounted on, or extend from, respective gas turbine disks. The gas turbine disks rotate at a high rate on their shaft or shafts. During service, the various parts of the gas turbine disks are subjected to different conditions of loadings and temperatures. For example, the high-pressure and low-pressure turbine disks, upon which the turbine blades are mounted, experience low-cycle-fatigue loadings and high tensile stress at relatively lower temperatures near their bores, and high tensile stress and creep loadings at relatively higher temperatures near their rims.
The turbine disks are made of nickel-base superalloys, but no single nickel-base superalloy having a single grain size and heat-treatment state provides optimum performance under these different conditions. Various techniques have been proposed for varying the properties of the turbine disk as a function of radial position. For example, it has been suggested to vary the composition of the alloy as a function of radial position, and/or to vary the heat treat temperatures as a function of radial position to vary the grain size and mechanical properties.
There remains a need for a practical approach to making the turbine disks utilizing these principles, and the present invention fulfills this need.